Europe to-day. It is by such a resolve that the American people,
coercing a reluctant government to draw the sword and stake the
national existence on the integrity of the Republic, are now
anything but the fragments of a nation before the world, the scorn
and hiss of every petty tyrant. It is because the people of the
United States, rising to the height of the occasion, dedicated this
generation to the sword, and pouring out the blood of their
children as of no account, and vowing before high Heaven that there
should be no end to this conflict but ruin absolute or absolute
triumph, that we now are what we are; that the banner of the
Republic, still pointing onward, floats proudly in the face of the
enemy; that vast regions are reduced to obedience to the laws, and
that a great host in armed array now presses with steady step into
the dark regions of the rebellion. It is only by the earnest and
abiding resolution of the people that, whatever shall be our fate,
it shall be grand as the American nation, worthy of that Republic
which first trod the path of empire and made no peace but under the
banners of victory, that the American people will survive in
history. And that will save us. We shall succeed, and not fail. I
have an abiding confidence in the firmness, the patience, the
endurance of the American people; and, having vowed to stand in
history on the great resolve to accept of nothing but victory or
ruin, victory is ours. And if with such heroic resolve we fall, we
fall with honor, and transmit the name of liberty, committed to our
keeping, untarnished, to go down to future generations. The
historian of our decline and fall, contemplating the ruins of the
last great Republic, and drawing from its fate lessons of wisdom on
the waywardness of men, shall drop a tear as he records with sorrow
the vain heroism of that people who dedicated and sacrificed
themselves to the cause of freedom, and by their example will keep
alive her worship in the hearts of men till happier generations
shall learn to walk in her paths. Yes, sir, if we must fall, let
our last hours be stained by no weakness. If we must fall, let us
stand amid the crash of the falling Republic and be buried in its
ruins, so that history may take note that men lived in the middle
of the